The Visualizing Justice project commenced in 2020, as the United States experienced widespread protests against racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd. To confront the extent of violence perpetuated in the United States against Black people, we started the project by mapping police killings. We drew on data from The Mapping Police Violence team, who have documented police killings since 2013. The video above represents each person killed by police from 2013 to 2020 as a point on a map corresponding to their location and known race. We also mapped whether police were using body cameras at the time of the killing, and whether any police were charged in relation to the death.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Prisoners overwhelmingly lose their right to vote and face discrimination in employment, access to housing, loans, and welfare. Within this reality, Black Americans are disproportionately over-represented. Today, American legal institutions legislate against racial discrimination and increasingly identify and charge criminals using impartial technologies.
Black people in the United States consistently experience poorer health outcomes compared to other groups. This however extends beyond mortality rates for preventable diseases and intertwines with social and environmental inequalities that Black communities commonly face.The Visualizing Justice project sought to uncover some of the links between physical ill-health and these forms of structural inequality.
In America today, large metropolitan areas display higher levels of racial segregation than they did in the early 90s, and the rate of homeownership among Black people has barely risen since the 70s. Racial segregation in housing and low rates of home ownership have led to generational wealth inequalities. To understand and move beyond these disparities, the Visualizing Justice project examined the long history of structural racism in the US property market and its ongoing legacy today.
REFERENCES: UNFREEDOM
Anderson, E, (2020), ‘Controversial Detroit facial recognition got him arrested for a crime he didn’t commit’, Detroit Free Press, published July 10 2020
Angwin, J, Larson, J, Mattu, Su, and Kirchner, K, (2016), ‘Machine Bias: There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks', ProPublica, published May 23 2016
Cahn, A.F, (2019), Background research conversation, May 2019
Carson, A (2021), ‘Prisoners in 2020 - Statistical Tables’, Bureau of Justice Statistics, from https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2020-statistical-tables
Fight for the Future, (2021), ‘Ban Facial Recognition Map’
Pierson, E, Simoiu, C, Overgoor, J, Corbett-Davies, S, Jenson, D, Shoemaker, A, Ramachandran, V, Barghouty, P, Phillips, C, Shroff, R and Goel, S “A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the United States”. Nature Human Behaviour, Vol. 4, 2020.
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Larson, J, Mattu, S, Kircgner, L, and Angwin, J, (2016), ‘How we Analyzed the COMPAS Recidivism Algorithm’, ProPublica, published May 23 2016
The Sentencing Project (2020), ‘Fact Sheet: Trends in U.S. Corrections’
Manis, E, Cahn, A.F, Akyol, N & Magee, C, (2021), 'Scan City: A Decade of NYPD Facial Recognition Abuse', July 8 2021
McPherson, E (1866), ‘A political manual for 1866 [to 1869]’, courtesy of the Lieber Collection in the Library of Congress
Urban Institute, (2019), ‘Criminal Justice Expenditures: Police, Corrections, and Courts'
Image Credits
‘African American convicts working with axes, Reed Camp, South Carolina’, (1915), Lomax, A Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C
‘A Southern Chain Gang’, (1898), Weiss, C, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C
'Barry Goldwater at 1964 Republican National Convention', (1964), C-Span
'Can 433 Martin Luther King Leads Civil Rights Protest in Alabama', (1965), AP archive
‘Chain gang prisoners - one shaving another; one sharpening tools on grinding wheel’, Weis, Carl, (1898), Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C
‘Colfax Copy of the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States of America’, Courtesy of Seth Kaller
‘COMPAS Risk Scales’, contributed by Julia Angwin (ProPublica), Document Cloud
'Martin Luther King Leads Civil Rights Protest in Alabama', (1965), AP archive
‘President Clinton Signing the Crime Bill (1994)’, (1994), Courtesy of clintonlibrary42
'President Johnson's Remarks on the Signing of the Civil Rights Bill', Cecil Stoughton, (1964), LBJ Library photo
‘Prisoners breaking up rocks at a prison camp or road construction site’, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C
‘The Real Selma Footage’, (1965), Courtesy of Richard Morris
REFERENCES: HEALTH
Bower, Kelly M et al. “The intersection of neighborhood racial segregation, poverty, and urbanicity and its impact on food store availability in the United States.” Preventive medicine vol. 58 (2014): 33-9. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2013.10.010
Carwright, S, (1851), 'Drapetomania A Psychiatric Diagnosis', DeBow's Review
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, (2020), ‘ Underlying Cause of Death 1999-2020’
Chapman, H, (1873) , ‘Using Race Hierarchies to Prove Human Evolution in 'Evolution of Life'’, J.B. Lippincott & Co, Philadelphia
DeNeen, L, (2017), ‘’You’ve got bad blood’: The horror of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment’, The Washington Post, May 16
Energy Justice, (2021), Justice Map
Garofalo, P, (2019), ‘Inside the Fight Over the Last Hospital in D.C.’s Poorest Neighborhood’, Talk Poverty, May 28 2019
Kaiser Family Foundation, (2019), ‘Uninsured Rates for the Nonelderly by Race/Ethnicity
Kids Count Data Center, (2022), ‘Infant death rate (per 1,000 live births) by race/ethnicity in District of Columbia
Lloyd, P, (2018), ‘Perinatal Health Report 2018’, DC Health
Matheny, K, (2019), ‘Michigian’s worst ‘environmental injustice’ areas ID’d’, Detroit Free Press, July 25 2019
Morton, S, (1839), 'Crania Americana: Skulls of Various Aboriginal Nations', Simpkin, Marshal & Co, London
Neavling, S, (2020), ‘Struggling to breath in 48217, Michigan’s most toxic ZIP code', Detroit Metro Times, January 8 2020
U.S. Dept of Agriculture: Economic Research Service, (2021), ‘Food Access Research Atlas’
Van Evrei, J, (1861), ‘Negroes and Negro ‘slavery:’ the first an inferior race; the latter its normal condition’, New York: Van Evrie, Horton & Co
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Image Credits
‘J Marion Simms', The Encyclopedia of Alabama
Savage, H, (1870), ‘The Surgery, Surgical Pathology, and Surgical Anatomy of the Female Pelvic Organs, in a Series of Coloured Plates Taken from Nature’
‘Tuskegee Syphilis Study 4/11/1953-1972’, (1972), Courtesy of the National Archives
'Toxic Town: Michigan's Most Polluted Zipcode', (2020), Bill Kubota, One Detroit / Detroit Public Television
'United Medical Center', Bangabandhu (2018), Wikicommons
Emerson, R (2013), ‘Pet coke video shows black dust clouds over Detroit River’, CTV Windsor, July 31
Tlaib, R, (2018), ‘Rashida for Congress: Pet Coke’
REFERENCES: HOUSING
Kamin, D, (2020), ‘Black Homeowners Face Discrimination in Appraisals’, New York Times, August 27 2020
Federal Reserve, (2019), ‘Survey of Consumer Finances: 1989-2019’
FICO, (2020), ‘What’s in my FICO Scores?’
Martinchek, K, Carther, A, Braga, B, Quakenbush, C, and Mckernan, S, (2021), ‘Credit Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic’, Urban Institute
Menendian, S, Gambhir, S, and Gailes, A, (2021), ‘The Roots of Structural Racism Project: Twenty-First Century Racial Residential Segregation in the United States’, Othering & Belonging Institute, Berkeley
Nelson, R, Winling, L, Marciano, R, Connolly, N, et al., ‘Mapping Inequality’, American Panorama, ed Nelson, R and Ayers, E
Newsday, (2019), ‘Long Island Divided’
New York Times, (1910), ‘Baltimore Tries Drastic Plan of Race Segregation’, December 25 1910
New York Times, (1910), ‘Baltimore Mayor Approves Ordinance Barring Negroes from White Sections’, December 20 1910
PBS, (2003), ‘RACE - The Power of an Illusion’
Ratcliff, C, Brown, S, (2017), ‘Credit scores perpetuate racial disparities even in America’s most prosperous cities’, Urban Institute, November 20 2017
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Scott-Clayton, J and Li, J, (2016), ‘Black-white disparity in student loan debt more than triples after graduation’, Brookings, October 20 2016
United States Census Bureau, (2020), ‘2019 American Community Survey Single-Year Estimates’
Urban Institute analysis of U.S. Census Bureau, Decennial Census and American Community Survey 1990-2015
United States Census Bureau, (2019), ‘Housing: Home ownership versus renting statistics'
Image Credits
‘Abena and Alex Horton’, (2020), Kesl, C for the New York Times, August 25
‘1834 McCulloh Street’, MSA Maryland
‘Clips & Footage’, ‘1950s newsreel about the building of suburbia in Levittown’
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, (1977), 'Regulation B Equal Credit Opportunity Act', courtesy of Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' Historical Library
FFIEC, (2021), ‘The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act: Data collected in 2021'
‘George W F McMechen’, Tania A. Araya, GeneologyWise
'President Johnson's Remarks on the Signing of the Civil Rights Bill', (1964), Cecil Stoughton, LBJ Library photo
President John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights Address, (1963), Courtesy of Library of Congress, "The President Faces the Racial Crisis," CBS News, 11 June
‘Stephen Richmond’, (2020), Jorge, M for the New York Times, August 25
Visualizing Justice
UCLA Anthropology | Los Angeles
CC-12 | 2022 | Data Visualization + Research + Editing
The Visualizing Justice project is a sequence of animated data visualizations that reveal the social, political, and historical contexts in which racial injustice occurs in the United States. Each film; Unfreedom, Health, and Housing, combines media artifacts and original data visualizations to depict deeply-rooted injustices that are often invisible to contemporary legal processes. Inferstudio collaborated on this project with anthropologists and legal experts.
The project was funded by the UCLA TRAG grant program.
For more information, visit the project page here: https://visualizingjustice.com/
TEAM
Project Collaborators (Alphabetical)
Jennifer Burrell, Kamari Clarke (PI), Bethany Edgoose, Sara Kendall, Nathan Su, Nawi Ukabiala
Data Visualization
Nathan Su
Data Processing
Bethany Edgoose
Editing
Bethany Edgoose + Nathan Su
Researchers
Jazmin High, Andrea Sobko
Voice Over Narration
Nawi Ukabiala + Kamari Clarke
Sound Design
Sarah Su
